Good point Crust. Whether it's on the mb or the cpu you can only expect a certain amount of performance from integrated graphics. But from what I've seen with games or movies etc the graphic performance of i3/i5 integrated is sufficient for single screen output.

Well, I gave it a try and ended up installing an nvidia card. Integrated graphics mainly worked but was sub-par in some areas (HD video playback and desktop effects) I also never got a working text console (discussed in another thread). Also, my monitor never suspended with intel graphics, but it does with nvidia.

I wonder if it may be a mobo issue, my i3 is fine with HD playback and text console although some desktop effects don't work but I thought that was a KDE problem, I don't use them anyway.My board is a Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3 Monitor suspends OK as well.

xserver-xorg-video-radeon is working fine in dual-monitor setups for years, I have used it with r200 and am using it with r300 and rv630 radeon chipsets; the same goes for xserver-xorg-video-intel (i945GME). Just reads the specs carefully which outputs can be used concurrently. as especially for onboard graphics, it may only be possible to use one analogue port plus either DVI XOR HDMI/ display port, but not two digital ones (preferred) at once (hardware limitation; this should be less of a problem with discrete graphics cards).